


Should’ve Stuck with Bed, Bath & Beyond

by whumphoarder



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (megg safe), Banter, Fainting, Gen, Humor, Infection, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, POV Outsider, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, School, Sick Peter Parker, although peter may disagree at the moment, godspeed, i am definitely not projecting my own professional struggles, patrick the school nurse has crippling imposter syndrome, there are 28 characters in this story and 17 of them are OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26545111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whumphoarder/pseuds/whumphoarder
Summary: Having recently quit a high-stress job at the local ER, Patrick Carmichael—the rookie nurse at Midtown School of Science and Technology—is ready to settle into a nice quiet life of handing out band-aids and ice packs and collecting students’ mandatory sports physical forms.Unfortunately, he's about to meet Peter Parker.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker & Original Character(s), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 191
Kudos: 1024
Collections: Outstanding Outsider POVs, best of the acadec team, underated irondad





	Should’ve Stuck with Bed, Bath & Beyond

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpideyFics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpideyFics/gifts).



> (Em, I don't know if I would have finished this one without your encouragement <3)
> 
> Thank you to [xxx-cat-xxx](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/) and [sallyidss](https://sallyidss.tumblr.com/) for beta-reading and to [awesomesockes](https://awesomesockes.tumblr.com/) for the idea!

“...And here’s where we keep the band-aids,” the elderly school nurse explains, opening a cabinet over the counter. A sizable collection of both adhesive and ace bandages in various shapes and sizes come into view. “Remember to wear gloves any time you’re dealing with blood”—she gestures to the box on the shelf—“Nurses’ union couldn’t get the board to agree to free Hep C testing, so we’re on our own there.” She points to the fridge in the corner. “Ice packs are in the freezer—keep ‘em stocked. We go through them like hotcakes. Any questions, Paul?”

The young man clears his throat. “Uh, it’s Patrick, actually,” he corrects with an awkward chuckle. In truth, he has _so many_ questions, but the majority of them are less focused on the details of his new position at Midtown School of Science and Technology and more on his personal ongoing professional crisis, so he doubts Alice has the answers.

“Sorry,” she gives Patrick a kind smile, causing the corners of her eyes to crinkle up. “Memory’s not what it used to be. I’d probably forget my own retirement party this weekend if it wasn’t happening in my backyard.” She laughs a bit. “Still might do, actually!”

Patrick smiles a bit in return. Alice has to be pushing eighty by now. According to the vice principal who’d interviewed him, she has been filling the role of Midtown’s nurse for over four decades—through three separate building administrations. It’s nerve wracking to think of trying to fill her shoes by next week.

But on the flip side, he reminds himself as Alice goes over the student records and medication locker with him, the fact that she’s been in the profession forty years seems to indicate this job is a little more sustainable than his twelve-hour-long, stress-filled, nervous-breakdown-inducing hospital shifts. Maybe he’ll last longer than six months this time and his four-year degree won’t go completely to waste.

(And if not, he’s already decided he’s going back to his old job at Bed, Bath & Beyond).

It’s halfway through the first period, and Alice is just running through the computer system with him (“It’s an old monitor, dear. You just have to give it a few whacks whenever it freezes up, you see?”) when their first patient of the day wanders in. She’s a tiny little thing—a freshman, Patrick supposes, though she could probably pass for a twelve-year-old.

“Mrs. Schoeller...?” the girl mumbles, rubbing at her forehead with one hand.

Alice glances up over the desk, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Yes, Kendra?”

“I have a headache,” the girl announces, handing over a slip of paper which reads ‘Hall Pass.’ “Ms. Warren sent me.”

“Of course she did,” Alice says with an indulgent little smile. While the student squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a little moan, the nurse rolls her eyes goodnaturedly in Patrick’s direction. _Algebra,_ she mouths, and Patrick gets the sense this isn’t Kendra’s first time conning her math teacher into letting her ditch.

Alice talks him through the protocol anyway, pulling up Kendra’s form, taking her temperature (98.6, on the dot), and instructing the girl to grab an ice pack from the freezer for her head and ‘lie down for a spell’ on the cot in the back.

“She’s got art next period—she’ll have made a miraculous recovery by then,” she tells Patrick quietly once Kendra is safely out of earshot.

Patrick nods, feeling a bit overwhelmed already. “Do you know all the students by name?”

“Oh, heavens no!” Alice assures with a small laugh. “Kendra’s what we call a ‘frequent flyer.’ I’ll email her parents later—express my concern, casually recommend she see a neurologist if these headaches keep occurring, that sort of thing.” She winks, just the slightest bit mischievously. “That should keep her out of your hair for a few weeks.”

Sure enough, the girl’s ‘headache’ is gone by second period, which is lucky because there’s a definite uptick in student foot traffic by then. Alice has him doling out kids’ prescription meds, supervising inhaler usage, fetching saltine crackers, and taking temperatures.

“Nothing too flashy here. Just simple, honest work,” Alice explains as she fishes an eraser out of the nose of a sheepish-looking junior boy with a pair of forceps. “But it’s important work, nonetheless.”

Just as the object is freed, the boy, Abraham, sneezes violently, directly onto Patrick’s shirt. 

“Ah, sorry. My bad,” Abraham says with a sniffle.

Patrick grimaces as he passes the boy a tissue. He’d chosen high school nursing over elementary purposely to avoid situations like this, but evidently teenagers are just as nasty—if not more so—as the little ones when there are dares involved.

By fourth period, Alice is starting to let him fly solo. Patrick quickly learns that whatever can’t be solved with ice, is usually solved by heat, and whatever can’t be solved by either typically responds to Gatorade. Anything beyond that, and he’s calling a parent or guardian.

“Are you alright if I take my lunch now?” Alice asks as Patrick nudges a freshly lined trash can in the direction of a rather green-looking sophomore waiting on the cot for her grandmother to pick her up. “Lorraine down at the cafeteria took a half-day so she could see me off, and I’ve got buy-one-get-one coupons for crab rangoon at the China Garden.”

“Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead,” Patrick assures, internally marveling that the woman has any appetite left after everything little Yasmin’s been up to for the last half hour. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Oh I know you do, dear,” she says with a twinkle in her eye, and gathers her bag. “But if you run into any trouble, I’ll be back within the hour.”

The elderly nurse shuffles out the door, her orthopedic sneakers squeaking as she heads down the hall. 

Patrick turns back to Yasmin, who has her arms wrapped loosely around her stomach. 

Yasmin stares back at him blankly.

_Now what?_

“Uh... want a Gatorade?” he offers.

The girl glances warily at the empty bin. “Uh… I don’t know.” She swallows hard. “Do you have the light blue one?”

Patrick gives her a tightlipped smile and pats her arm twice as he gets to his feet. _This is alright, I can handle this,_ he thinks to himself as he heads to the fridge where the sports drinks are kept. It’s better than the hospital anyway; back there, he’d be sticking an IV in her arm right about now. Or, trying to, that is. Always took him a couple of sticks. 

_And that’s the problem, isn’t it?_ Patrick thinks with a sigh, opening the fridge to reveal a veritable rainbow of Gatorade flavors. He’s booksmart. He can—and did—ace any theory exam thrown at him, straight A’s right up until his final semester (when that damn geriatrics class finally marred his otherwise pristine grade point average). But when it comes to the actual, practical stuff, he’s… well, he’s certainly not _incompetent,_ but he is... _mediocre_ at best.

 _Wasn’t mediocre at Bed, Bath & Beyond though, _ Patrick thinks bitterly. Employee of the month—June _and_ December. His picture is still hanging on the break room wall to this day. Hell, he’d even mastered the art of folding a fitted sheet without a single wrinkle. Could’ve easily made assistant manager by now, if not for this silly nursing dream that’s accomplished nothing but force him to change bedpans and get shouted at by supervisors and patients alike for silly mistakes such as using the wrong size blood pressure cuff or spilling the iodine on the—

The sound of a single monotone beep interrupts his thoughts.

 _“Hello, this is Roger Harrington,”_ an urgent male voice says over the room’s private intercom channel. _“I need the nurse to room 201 right away. One of my students just collapsed.”_

**X**

Patrick stands there, frozen in place as an onslaught of unpleasant memories rushes over him: codes being called, crash carts whizzing past down sterile-looking white hallways, alarms beeping, colleagues barking out orders. It’s everything he’s been trying to get away from—the whole reason he only lasted half a year at Mercy General. 

He should have gone into home health nursing after all—this isn’t supposed to happen at a fucking high school.

 _“Hello?”_ the teacher repeats. _“Is anyone there?”_

The voice knocks Patrick right out of his stupor. He whirls around and picks up the phone receiver connected to the intercom system. “Uh, hello?”

Harrington sounds confused. “Alice?”

“No, this is Patrick,” he answers, then, for not the first time, he curses that fucking yellow sponge cartoon. “Patrick Carmichael, the new nurse,” he adds quickly. “Uh, I think we met at the new staff mixer…?”

Patrick phrases it like a question, but in reality, he couldn’t forget if he wanted to. Harrington had sat directly across from him in a weird argyle sweater vest and told a long and convoluted story about his ex-wife Tabitha’s pet chihuahua—Mister Foofster—while sampling his way through each of the seven different kinds of pasta and potato salads available at the potluck table. Patrick, meanwhile, had barely gotten two words in.

“Carmichael?” He can practically hear the frown in Harrington’s voice. “Ahh, that’s right… You were on my team for the ice breaker game, weren’t you? Favorite animal is a sloth?”

“No, sir, a giraffe,” Patrick corrects automatically, then instantly kicks himself.

 _“Mr. Harrington, he’s burning up!”_ a girl hollers in the background.

 _“Okay, Betty, just take everyone else to the library,”_ Harrington calls back. Then to Patrick he adds, “Sorry to do this to you on your first day. I can send a student down to get you if you don’t know–”

“No no, I got it,” Patrick assures quickly, grabbing the backpack of emergency supplies that Alice showed him earlier along with the paper copy of the building map they gave him at the front office. He yanks open the file drawer. “What’s the student’s name?”

“Peter,” Harrington says. “Peter Parker.”

**X**

After locating Peter’s file, it takes Patrick an additional two-and-a-half minutes to get from the nurse’s office up to the science lab on the second floor—the last sixty seconds of which due to the fact that the school’s _baffling_ numbering system has somehow placed room 201 next to room 256 and across from a room labeled ‘12a.’ 

(The paper map proves just as useless; 201 isn’t even listed on it.)

 _Orienteering—now that’s the club I should have joined in college,_ he thinks to himself as he jogs down the confounding halls. _HOSA was nothing but a waste of my Tuesday nights. Not to mention the cliques..._

Patrick finds the science lab deserted apart from Harrington and a round-faced boy in a Hawaiian shirt, who are both crouching over the disturbingly-pale body of the student on the ground (who process of elimination dictates must be Peter Parker).

“–Please, Mr. Harrington, you don’t understand,” Hawaiian-Shirt-Kid is saying. “He’s my friend, I can help, I–”

“Ned, for the last time,” the teacher cuts him off, sounding some mixture of panicked and exasperated. “Just go to the library and wait with the other students.”

The boy—Ned, apparently—looks frantic. “But, he’s got– he’s got a _condition,_ okay? I can’t tell you exactly what it is, but–”

 _A condition?_ Instant dread pools in Patrick’s stomach as he jogs over, his hands fumbling to open the file which he really should have skimmed through on his way up. _If only this school wasn’t a fucking labyrinth..._

Asthma is listed as the kid’s primary condition, he notes as he squats down beside Peter, along with a peppermint allergy serious enough to get him issued an Epi-Pen a year ago. _Fuck,_ he should have grabbed the kid’s rescue bag at least. Not that this looks much like a respiratory issue anyway, but he really should have been more prepared if–

Both Patrick’s internal monologue and Ned’s words are cut off by the sound of a low groan.

“Peter!” Ned gasps, his attention immediately going to his friend on the ground. “Oh thank god – can you hear me now? The nurse is here!”

Peter blinks around in confusion. “Mrs. Schoeller?” he croaks.

“Ah, no.” Patrick lifts his hand to give a nervous little wave. “I’m Patrick.” He frowns, suddenly unsure if students are allowed to use his first name. “Or, I mean, Mr. Carmichael,” he corrects. _No, that sounds too stiff._ “Uh, but you can call me Mr. C if you want,” he concludes. 

“Sorry, no can do.” Harrington shakes his head, giving Patrick a regretful look. “Cahuantzi’s got dibs on ‘Mr. C’ already and he’s got tenure, so he won’t be giving that up without a fight.”

Patrick feels his cheeks flush. “Oh! I didn’t mean–”

“But ‘Mr. P’ is open now!” Ned throws in helpfully. “You can be the new Mr. P, Mr. C!”

“That’s okay, I just–”

“Wait… wait,” Peter murmurs, rubbing a hand over his face blearily. “Did... Mr. Pehanich retire?”

Harrington hums affirmatively. “Over the summer. His eye wasn’t really the same after that incident in shop last year with the nail gun...”

Ned winces. “Yikes.”

“Aw, I liked him…” Peter says sadly.

Patrick clears his throat. “Uh, so anyway, I’m the new nurse. And your name is Peter, right?” he says, addressing the boy on the floor.

Peter nods a bit. “Yeah. And ‘m fine now. Sorry ‘bout all this…” he mumbles, starting to push himself up slightly on his elbow. 

Patrick scrambles to support him, feeling unnatural heat radiating off Peter’s skin as he does so. “I don’t know about fine,” he says skeptically. “You feel pretty warm.”

Peter blinks a few times, looking dizzy. “Nah… I-I just run hot.”

Ned frowns. “No you don’t. You run cold.”

 _“Ned,”_ Peter whispers with an undertone of warning, causing the other boy to go silent.

“Uh… okay,” Patrick says awkwardly. He takes Peter’s wrist in his hand while Harrington gets to his feet.

“If you have this handled, I should go see if the other kids got a sub yet,” the teacher says. “Otherwise the librarian will have my head.”

As Harrington heads out, Patrick checks Peter’s pulse. The kid’s heart rate is faster than he’d expected, which is a little worrisome, but he supposes that could be dehydration. The thermometer he pulls out of the emergency bag confirms his suspicions of fever, coming in at 102.4. 

“When’d you start feeling sick, Peter?” he asks.

“I dunno,” Peter shrugs, squinting a bit against the fluorescent lights. “This morning, I guess? But it wasn’t so bad then…”

 _Alright, so probably just a run of the mill case of flu,_ Patrick decides. _This is fine, I can handle this. At least there’s no bodily fluids invo– ah shit._ He suddenly remembers little Yasmin downstairs. _Whoops._

“Do you think you can make it down to the office?” he asks Peter. 

“Yeah, yeah of course,” Peter assures, already starting to get to his feet.

Patrick and Ned each take an arm to help hoist the kid upright, but Peter is barely on his feet before he lets out a sharp gasp, letting go of Ned’s arm to press his hand to his side.

“Peter!” his friend yelps.

“What is it?” Patrick asks in alarm.

“Nothing, ‘m fine!” Peter grits out, eyes squeezed shut. “Sorry, just got a cramp.”

Ned rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, just let him see it, Peter.”

“There’s nothing to s–”

“He’s a nurse,” Ned insists, cutting him off. “There’s like, HIPAA laws, right? Confidentiality?” He frowns a bit. “Although, I guess if he’s a mandated reporter–”

 _“Ned!”_ Peter snaps.

Now every alarm bell inside Patrick’s head is ringing. “See what?”

“Nothing, it’s–”

“Holy shit.” The words are out of Patrick’s mouth before he can stop them because all at once he sees it: dark red stains seeping into the kid’s t-shirt around where his hand is splayed over his side. “Did that just happen?” he asks, pointing at the kid’s shirt. 

“Uh…” Peter’s gaze follows the nurse’s down to his abdomen. “Not exactly?” He gives a small, pained smile. “But it’s really not as bad as it looks.”

“It totally is!” Ned exclaims in frustration. “You obviously ripped the stitches now, so just–”

“Ned _shut up!”_ Peter hisses.

“What _stitches?”_ Patrick demands.

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Peter says, wiping a hand across his forehead, which is beading with sweat. “Just had a little… incident a few nights ago, but I took care of it.”

“Should’ve let _me_ take care of it,” Ned gripes. “Considering I’m the only one of us getting an A in Home Ec...”

Peter rolls his eyes. “You gonna keep bringing that up?”

“You’ve got a 64 percent in the class.”

“That’s only because I forgot to turn in the take-home quiz, it doesn’t mean–”

“You can barely sew a _button_ on!”

Peter opens his mouth to retort something back, but then closes it again, the color draining from his cheeks and his knees start to give way. 

“Whoa!” Patrick yelps in surprise, quickly readjusting his grip on the feverish (and, apparently, _bleeding_ ) kid while Ned grabs the nearest chair to shove under him.

Peter squeezes his eyes shut tightly as he’s lowered down onto the seat, his expression pinched in obvious pain. 

Patrick allows himself a moment to wrap his head around the idea that these literal children have somehow performed a medical procedure that he himself—a registered nurse—was never trained to do.

“Okay.” He blows out a carefully measured breath. “If you really have stitches, I need to see them. You might have an infection.”

“‘Course I have an infection…” Peter mutters dizzily, still not opening his eyes. “But ‘s fine. It’ll heal…”

With an exasperated sigh, Ned pulls his friend’s hand away from his abdomen and lifts his shirt up, exposing a blood-soaked gauze pad that’s been surgically-taped to Peter’s side. “He got it three nights ago,” Ned informs as Patrick pulls on a pair of gloves. “Pretty sure it got infected yesterday.”

“Traitor...” Peter mutters, but he seems too exhausted to give the accusation much heat.

Carefully, Patrick peels back the bandage, revealing a rather shoddily-done row of stitches covering a four-inch or so long gash. A mixture of blood and yellow pus oozes from the end where several of the stitches have given out.

“Oh fuck me...” Patrick breathes out, staring at the ugly, seeping wound because _the_ _sepsis patient days are supposed to be fucking over now_ and _Jesus Christ what has this child done..._

“Mr. P?” Ned asks nervously. 

“Sorry!” He snaps back to the present. “Uh, okay…” 

_Don’t freak out,_ he tells himself. _Just stay cool. There’s probably a simple explanation for this that won’t result in you calling Child Protective Services about a badly-stitched, infected stab wound on your very first day on the job._

“How did you get that?” he asks as neutrally as he can manage.

“I fell,” Peter answers, at the same exact moment that Ned blurts, “Five-inch pocket knife.”

Patrick blinks at them. “You what now?”

Peter winces. “I… fell on a five-inch pocket knife?”

Patrick closes his eyes and imagines for a moment how lovely it would be to be folding towels right now and getting yelled at about thread counts by entitled middle-aged women with signature ‘I’d like to speak to the manager’ haircuts.

“Okay.” He opens his eyes again, exhaling slowly. “Okay, it’s definitely time to call your parents,” he says, reaching for Peter’s file. 

Despite his feverish state, Peter gives a half-hearted snort. “Good luck.”

Patrick frowns. “What?” 

“They’re dead—he lives with his aunt,” Ned says bluntly. “But that won’t work either. I kept telling him to call her when he was feeling bad earlier, but he says she has jury duty today.”

Peter hums in tired affirmation. “No phones allowed.”

Patrick blinks at him once. Then blinks again. 

(Because seriously, _what the hell._ )

“I’ll call you an ambulance then,” he decides.

Peter’s glassy eyes go wide. “What? No!”

“You have an _infected knife wound,”_ Patrick says slowly, mostly because he can barely believe it himself. “Some Gatorade and a band-aid aren’t going to cut it here.”

The kid looks panicked. “No, no hospital! I can’t go there, I– My blood, it’s– _Ned.”_ He shoots his friend a pleading look. 

A look of understanding comes over Ned’s features. “Uh, he really can’t Mr. P!” he agrees quickly. “His… uh, insurance is super weird so it would cost a fortune! And his aunt, she’s like a single mom – well, I guess technically a single aunt, but you know – they don’t have a ton of money, so…”

Patrick feels a pang of sympathy for the kid. It’s true ambulance costs are absurd these days.

“–But there should be a second name on his form,” Ned goes on. “And I know you’re going to think this sounds crazy because he’s like, super famous–”

Peter interrupts, “No, wait, it’s not–”

Ned holds up a finger, shushing him. “–and a billionaire and stuff, while Peter’s just like, a nobody, but he’s actually got this internship with the company so I swear, if you just call him–” 

Glancing down at the hot pink post-it note attached to the form labeled ‘secondary emergency contact,’ Patrick’s brow furrows in confusion. “Harold Hogan?”

Ned quirks his head. “Who?”

 _“Ned,”_ Peter groans. “It’s Happy.”

Realization dawns on Ned’s features. “Ohhh…. So you mean May put down– Ohh okay. Yeah that makes more sense.” He turns back to Patrick. “Yeah, yeah call Harold, Mr. P!”

**X**

(Unfortunately for Peter, Harold doesn’t answer.).

**X**

Twelve minutes later, a very distraught Peter is loaded into the back of an ambulance while a crowd of Midtown’s admin gathers around to watch.

“He’s a minor, so we need one staff member on board,” Tyrone, the paramedic strapping Peter to the gurney, says.

“I can go,” the vice principal volunteers.

“Sharon, we all know you’re just trying to get out of your meeting with the Thompsons this afternoon,” the school social worker mutters back.

The vice principal looks offended. “Not at all! I just care very deeply about Charles.”

The social worker rolls her eyes. “This is Peter. Charles is the one with the glasses.”

“But they have the same hair?”

“They really don’t,” the secretary—who’d come out to direct the ambulance—pipes up. “Peter’s hair is more curly. Charles’s hair is darker.”

The vice principal frowns. “I think you’re mixing him up with Luke.”

The secretary shakes her head. “No, Luke got a buzz-cut last week.”

“Luke _Mendoza?”_

“No, no the other Luke. Hayley’s brother…”

As Patrick’s colleagues continue to bicker in the background, Peter keeps up his increasingly urgent protests, citing some ‘special condition’ (which he refuses to name, but supposedly prevents him from going to the hospital) and how ‘Ned’s trying to get a hold of someone else who can help, so please, just wait a minute.’ It’s not until the EMTs threaten to sedate him that the kid finally lies back and stops trying to rip out his own IV.

It’s Alice—back from lunch early with a little doggy bag of crab rangoon and chicken lo mein in tow—who suggests that Patrick be the one to ride along.

Patrick feels utterly overwhelmed. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better if you went instead?”

“Oh goodness no!” Alice laughs. “My knees aren’t what they used to be and that’s an awfully big step up. These nice boys in blue”—she nods, smiling, to the EMTs—“would have to hoist me up there!”

“I’m sure we’d manage, ma’am,” the other medic—Darryl—says, miming tipping his hat to her while Tyrone finishes tightening Peter’s straps. 

“I appreciate it, but I think my ride-along days are over,” Alice chuckles. “I’ll hold down the fort here. You go along, dear,” she tells Patrick. “It’s good to get out!”

Somehow, the little herd of admin agrees with her, and Patrick finds himself boarding the ambulance in a daze, wistfully imagining all the pumpkin spice scented potpourri he could be stocking right now in another life.

Alice gives him a reassuring pat on the arm. “You’re doing wonderfully, sweetie,” she tells him quietly just before the EMTs shut the door.

**X**

Peter continues his half-hearted protests for a bit, but eventually he seems to accept his fate, lying back with a resigned sigh―or maybe it’s just the fever getting the better of him. Tyrone tries to distract him with some lighthearted (if rather one-sided) conversation about the latest Mets game.

Knowing virtually nothing about baseball, Patrick has plenty of time to dwell on how he should have picked a different school district to work in because he really, really does not want to set foot into Mercy General again.

These days, just the sight of that white concrete building is enough to send shudders down his spine with memories of those terrible six months of exhaustion, frayed nerves, and the constant feeling that someone will suddenly realize they’ve made a terrible mistake in hiring him and passing his exams was all a fluke and then his license will be revoked.

(Though, honestly, what a relief that would be.)

Just as Patrick’s dread is reaching new heights, the radio crackles alive.

“This is dispatcher 61 to unit 302,” a female voice says over the airway.

Darryl looks puzzled. “Unit 302. Uh, go ahead, dispatch,” he answers.

“Due to a shortage of available beds at Mercy, we will be rerouting you to a private medical facility downtown,” the dispatcher informs pleasantly. 

Frowning, Tyrone leans forward and whispers, “Wait, we can do that?” to his colleague, who merely shrugs in response.

 _“_ The coordinates have already been adjusted in your navigation system,” the dispatcher goes on. Patrick can’t quite place her accent. It’s Scottish, maybe? Irish? Either way, the soothing voice causes Peter to relax noticeably on his gurney.

“‘S Friday…” the kid sighs in relief, just loud enough for Patrick to make it out.

Patrick frowns. “No, it’s Monday,” he corrects. 

_It’s definitely, definitely a Monday._

Darryl sounds wary. “Did Marlene approve this change?” he says over the radio.

There’s a brief pause. “Of course. Straight from the top,” she replies evenly.

(Peter lets out a weak snort of amusement.)

“Uh, alright then, as long as the boss approves...” Darryl releases the radio button. “Well that’s a new one,” he mutters to Tyrone, who hums in agreement.

But honestly? Patrick is too relieved to care.

**X**

As if this day can’t get any weirder, they pull up in front of the honest-to-god Stark Tower.

“Kid’s got an internship,” Harold Hogan explains gruffly as he signs the student release forms Patrick hands to him. “Gets free treatment here—employee perks, you know?”

“Right, of course.” Patrick nods along, as if this absurd situation makes any sense at all.

Some kind of staff member—a man wearing scrubs, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and an oddly familiar goatee (from the quick glimpse Patrick gets of his face before the man looks away again)—helps to transfer Peter onto a new gurney. Then he leans his head down close to Peter’s shoulder and mutters something in a low voice that’s along the lines of, “You are shaving actual years off my life, you know that kid?” as he starts to wheel him toward the building.

“Wait, one sec,” Peter says weakly, and the gurney halts. He looks back to Patrick. “Uh, Mr. P?”

“Yeah?” Patrick answers.

The fever spots on the kid’s cheeks and beads of sweat on his forehead make him look even more sheepish. “Just wanted to say thanks,” he says. “And sorry for all the trouble.”

“It’s alright, Peter.” Patrick smiles with all the reassurance he can muster—which is a pathetically small amount. “I think first days are always rough.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come and hang out on tumblr if you'd like! My url is [whumphoarder](https://whumphoarder.tumblr.com/)


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